


Good Intentions

by olivemartini



Series: Good Intentions [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-22
Updated: 2016-02-22
Packaged: 2018-05-22 13:38:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,280
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6081381
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/olivemartini/pseuds/olivemartini
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Molly had meant to raise children, not warriors.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Good Intentions

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Благие намерения](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8356207) by [Drakonyashka](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Drakonyashka/pseuds/Drakonyashka)



Molly had meant to raise children, not warriors.

When the kids were small, Ron just a baby and Ginny not yet born, she would dream up futures them.  They were silly things, distractions to occupy her mind when Arthur was late on his way home from an order meeting, or when the headlines in the Daily Prophet were particularly horrible, but they were lovely dreams while she got to have them.  They were different every time Molly let herself think about it, but the underlying message was the same- _please,_ she had remembered thinking, over and over again, _I don't care how they end up, Merlin, I really don't, just let us all live._ It was a dream that was holding on by the smallest thread, because as the members of the order were picked off one by one at an alarming speed, she was faced with the knowledge that she would likely not watch her children grow up.

And then, miraculously, it was over.  It did not happen with a long drawn out battle like she thought it would.  There was no huge sacrifice, or blood shed.  There was only Arthur bursting through the front door, a wild and excited look in his eye as he grabbed her, saying that You-Know-Who was gone, that they were safe, finally.  There would be no more coming home worried about dark marks over doorways, no more having to wonder what would happen to their kids when they were gone, no more Order.  It was only them, and their little house in the middle of no where, and their children.

(But when the excitement of it all had died down, and Arthur had told her how the Dark Lord had finally been vanquished, she sat into a chair and cried, cried for the newly weds that she had thought were perfect for each other, cried for Black and Lupin who had just lost their friends, cried for the little boy that lost everything for a world he did not know he was a part of.)

Suddenly, there was such a thing as a future. 

When she discovered she was pregnant with Ginny, she did not cry as she would have a year ago.  She had been so terrified of having Ron, of having another child that she would either be forced to leave or would have to watch make his way in a world that was no place for a child.  She became much too excited, knitting new onesies and planning her future birthdays, imagining how she would drag her blanket around the house, how her brothers would protect her.  She thought Ginny would be a lovely little girl, one who would never have to clutch her wand tight to stop her hand from shaking as she pointed it at an enemy that should have been her friend, but Molly had been wrong before.  And when Ginny said she was going to marry Harry Potter, the boy who lived, Molly laughed and said that would be nice, but in the meantime, she could just put a poster of him on the back of the bedroom door. 

When Bill and Charlie went off to Hogwarts, she was thrilled.  There was a sense of sadness, of having to let go of something deeply dear to her, but it was a good kind of sorrow.  It was a sorrow that let her know how lucky she was, reminding her of how many mothers had been deprived of this right.  And when the first owl came, saying how wonderful Hogwarts was, their happiness was never once marred by anxious questions and confused wonderings about a man called Voldemort and his so called army.  She had thought, when the prefect badges came, that they were surely about to head into the ministry, where they would be safe and Arthur could keep an eye on them.  She thought they were kids that she wouldn't have to worry about. 

When Ron cried over the names his brothers called him, Molly smiled, because if he could be upset over this then at least he had never known true sorrow.  She did not intervene, she let him fight his own battles, not knowing that she should have taken care of just this one thing, because there were too many times in the future that he would be going to fight and she would not be able to follow.    When Fred and George first started to blow things up, she pretended that she was angry.  She pretended that she was angry at the goo-splattered curtains, trying to hide how the sudden noises made her think that Voldemort was here at least, ready to make her children pay for Molly's own foolish rebellion.  

She let Percy lose himself in his books, let him be swallowed by his own ambition, because she thought that was what was best.  Molly didn't cry when he told her that the hat had tried to put him in Slytherin, and then Ravenclaw, but he had asked for Gryffindor because he didn't want to disappoint her.  Molly didn't let her heart break, not two years later when she asked if he had made any new friends over breakfast and told her no, but that was okay, because he didn't belong there anyways.  And when he said that he didn't fit here, that this family was a mold that he could not force himself to match, Molly told him that was okay.  She knew then that he would leave, someday, but it would be okay, because the world was now a safe place for him to venture out into. 

Her children would all be safe.

(But then Bill ditched his ministry ambitions to go be a curse breaker, and Charlie ran off chasing dragons, and Ginny became even more stubborn that her brothers, and she suddenly wasn't so sure anymore.)

She guesses it was decided when Ron sat down in that compartment with Harry.  She knew, when she was knitting a sweater for Harry for the first time, feeling her heart contract at the thought of the wizarding worlds hero not even getting presents, that she was gaining another child. And even though she knew that he would be the hardest to keep safe, that he would most likely put the rest of the family in danger, it was too late- he had just as big of a spot in her heart as any of her natural born children.  But he too, she knew, would be okay.

Then she got an owl saying that Ron, Harry, and Hermione had fought you-know-who on their own because no adult had listened to their concerns, and she realized that Harry Potter was a very dangerous friend for her son to have.  When she got to the school and listened to Ron's excited account of his year, which included smuggling dragons off to Charlie, and sneaking past three headed dogs, and sacrificing himself so his friends could go on to fight he-who-must-not-be-named, she sat down and cried, something she promised she would never do in front of her children.  "Mum, I'm sorry."  Ron had said, looking positively alarmed.  He was frightened by her tears, which only got bigger as he added, "But it had to be me, someone had to do it."  He didn't understand that she was crying because he sounded so much like the friends she had lost in the first war.  He didn't understand that he was sounding like a man, when he should have just been a little boy.

And that was when Molly realized the war was far from over, and her children were very much a part of it.

 


End file.
